When it comes to understanding the seemingly unprecedented Donald trump phenomenon, sometimes history provides some interesting parallels that can serve as a modern warning sign. In this case, I'm thinking of Austria in the 1930s, a nation that shared much culturally, politically and linguistically with its neighbor Germany but had only one-tenth its population. Sound familiar?

No one sat down near her. How is it that she cleared a section of a subway car at rush hour without saying a word? She wears a hijab. She is a young person of colour whose religion is outwardly apparent. What is happening to girls and women like her in public places is nothing short of disgraceful.

In 2011 the United Nations and all the countries in it adopted an agreement on human rights education and training. The agreement says that everyone has the right to an education that must include education about human rights -- even snarly kids. So why might this principal, and other educators like her, want to prohibit human rights education in her school?

It is outrageous that some commentators have compared President Obama to Franklin D. Roosevelt (not to mention the president's own immodest favourable comparison of himself to FDR and Lyndon Johnson and, for good measure, Abraham Lincoln).